German lawmakers vote to curb family reunification programme
German lawmakers on Friday voted to suspend family reunification rights for migrants who fall short of full asylum status, part of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's push to crack down on immigration.
The lower house of Parliament voted 444 to 135 in favour of suspending family reunions for migrants with subsidiary protection, a status granted to people allowed to stay because it's too dangerous to return home, even though they are not officially recognised as refugees.
As of the end of March, more than 388,000 people in Germany, primarily Syrians, held subsidiary protection status.
The new legislation suspends rules introduced in 2018 that allowed up to 1,000 close relatives per month to join migrants with this status.
Until now, German authorities made case-by-case decisions based on humanitarian grounds, rather than granting an automatic right to family reunification.
The law does not affect individuals who have been granted asylum or recognised as refugees under the Geneva Refugee Convention.
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told lawmakers the change would reduce the number of people able to come to Germany by around 12,000 per year and would "break a business model" for human traffickers.
Dobrindt defended the measure, arguing that the country's "capacity for integration simply has a limit."
"Many people know they won't receive full refugee recognition," Dobrindt said, "but they still head for Germany because it's known that, even without asylum status, you can bring your family later. That creates a strong pull factor, and today, we are eliminating that pull factor."
The Social Democrats (SPD) — a member party of Merz's governing coalition — expressed concerns about the legislation but ultimately agreed to it as part of a political compromise.
Germany's Minister for Migration, Refugees and Integration, Natalie Pawlik, acknowledged the discomfort within her party, saying, "Integration works better when families are together."
She added, however, that the SPD would support the measure, noting it does not apply to so-called hardship cases and is limited to two years.
The bill approved on Friday marks the first migration legislation passed since Merz took office. His government has pledged tougher immigration policies amid mounting public pressure.
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